Children’s Sermon

Matthew 21:23-32

What Do You Think?

By Lois Parker Edstrom

OBJECTS SUGGESTED: Dishpan, soap, dirty dishes, sponge, dish towel

Suppose your mother asked you to wash the dishes and you said, “No,” but later decided to do it.

Now suppose that your mother asked your younger sister to wash the dishes and she said, “Yes,” but didn’t do the work.

What do you think? Which child did what the mother asked? Yes, the first child eventually did the dishes.

Which child most pleased the mother? Neither one of them did because they were both disobedient.

Jesus uses a similar story, in the Bible, to make us think about obedience. There are people who say, “No” and choose not to accept God’s love and there are those who say, “Yes” and then don’t put God first and live the life God intended for them.

When Jesus was telling this story he said, “…what do you think?” (21:28). We need to think about how we can be obedient to God. We need to think about what is the best way to do God’s work and share his love with others. The answers to these questions are different for each one of us. We all must think about these important questions and about what we can do that would be most pleasing to God.

Scripture quotations from the World English Bible

Copyright 2007, Richard Niell Donovan